Boy
by SlytherinElektra
Summary: Set in early season 1. D'Artagnan is feeling sick, but hides it. Then things go awry in a mission, things go life-threatening bad. Shameless D'Artagnan whump.
1. Chapter 1

He had been feeling slightly bad for two days, but D'Artagnan said nothing. He wanted to prove his worth to these Musketeers wanted to give a good impression. Make sure they knew he was more than just a boy - he was a warrior, as tough as any of the others. He could withstand rain, heat, explosions and still mantain himself upright. He was a man, a strong man and he had to make everyone know, make everyone realise he could be a valuable asset for the team. Not just some Gascon that tag along, but someone who had earned his position.

D'Artagnan wanted to prove that he wasn't just a boy. He was a man.

And complaining about an upset stomach, or about how the world seemed to spin every time he did a sudden movement or how strangely cold he felt didn't seem a great way to earn his companions' respect.

So he kept quiet. And he'd been doing well so far, nobody had noticed anything strange about him. He was careful to speak as much as he used to and move normally even though sometimes he needed to be slower not to sway. This would probably go away with some rest and a good night's sleep anyways. He just had to last until nightfall, find a nice room and sleep it off. Because of course, they had to be away on a mission the week he felt the worst in his life.

They were supposed to stop some bandits that attacked in a desserted road on a small village near Paris. Just wait behind some trees for the bandits to appear in the road and catch them by surprise. Because _surprise is everything. _But after some time in which nothing happened, D'Artagnan was finding it more and more difficult to simply keep his eyes open, keep himself upright.

"You all right there, boy?" Aramis asked on his left.

That dreaded word again.

"Of course I am." He snapped and looked at the road with renewed resolution. He was going to do this, he was going to excel in this and have the others congratulate him on his swift action and bravery. That was what would happen, nothing else.

They stayed like that for a while longer while D'Artagnan tried to ignore how heavy his limbs were or that terrible feeling that his meagre breakfast could make an unwelcome reapparance any time. No. He had this under control. He could deal with this and so much more. And he had a mission – which he would fulfill. No unimportant ailment would stop him.

Time went by. They saw some carriages and some horses. It was strangely warm that day (even though D'Artagnan felt cold) and they were silent, to avoid being discovered. The air was clean and silent, it felt as though they were trapped in time. As if the world was turning slower than usual. As if everything were moving at an unusually calm pace. It was dull – until it wasn't.

Until everything accelerated too quickly and too much.

The bandits were a group, there was seven of them. They were seven and attacked a carriage with three people in it. The musketeers jumped to end the assault and catch those criminals once and for all, quickly, sliently. It should have been easy – they had dealt to with many more assailants in more adverse conditions than those, it really should have been over in a mere matter of minutes, without too much damage. But the musketeers hadn't counted on the these men being so skilled with swords, or in the irritating powder that some of them had and, when close enough, they threw in their foe's eyes.

Aramis had been the first victim of the damned powder. He'd won over that damned bandit, he'd made the masked man drop his sword – when the criminal reached for something in his pocket and suddenly, and for a very terrifying moment, he couldn't see. He couldn't see anything, and he panicked. After that terrifying moment, Aramis started seeing through teary eyes. He saw a figure getting further, and fast. The damn man was getting away, running away, while he teared up and tried up to get all that powder out. Still a bit teary, Aramis started running after the man. He was not going to get away after that.

The others weren't being excessively lucky, either. Athos had seen one of the bandits escape as well, while he was busy fighting another two. He got the first one disarmed relatively easily but then another one appeared to defend him and this man was so much better. He almost disarmed Athos twice and while he did so the first man also ran away. And there he was, in a seemingly unending sword fight with that masked bandit, getting more and more tired. Not good.

Porthos had had a bit of better luck, because the terrible powder those men wore missed his eyes and he was able to stop and immobilize of the bandits and shoot another while he meant to attack him from the back. It hadn't been an easy fight at first, because the bandit was skilled, but eventually he managed it. The bandit was stopped and so he went to check on the people of the carriage (who were luckily unharmed, even if they were quite shaken) and on the other musketeers. This was a completely different situation.

Aramis was running and swaying at the same time, running in a lot of different directions, as if somehow he couldn't see what he was doing, while the bandit he was chasing got away from him - fast. And Athos was fighting another one of them, but he didn't seem to have the upper hand. Porthos went to aid him and the fight was over in no time. At least that part was over.

The two musketeers were soon joined by a panting and bright-eyed Aramis, still with some tear tracks from the powder, who still saw his friends blurred and weird but at least there.

"You managed to stop three of them, that's something. Let's hope D'Artagnan has been as lucky as you. Where is he?"

They looked around, but he wasn't anywhere.

One of the women of the carriage spoke.

"The boy that came with you was fighting another of those men, I think they went towards the trees, towards the forest."

"_Merci, Madame." _Athos said, and all three of them sprinted in the direction she had indicated, while calling the younger man's name. They had been so engrossed in the problems they'd had, in those mighty fighters, that they hadn't seen anything beyond their foes.

"D'Artagnan!"

He could hear them faintly, calling his name. And he wished to go to them, badly. He wished they would come and tell him everything would be all right. Because right now, he was panicking, the world appeared to be melting around him, it had become just shapes and colours that made no sense.

"D'Artagnan!"

"He...Here."

The musketeers swiftly ran to the place where they heard the choked voice of their friend.

And they finally found him, laying in the grass, red staining the green, with a huge stab wound on his stomach and bright eyes. He was clutching at the wound with bloody hands and trying to look at his friends who were there, they were finally there, but everything was so terribly unfocused and the pain was too great.

"Oh, no..."

They worked fast binding the wound, but the boy was choking on his blood, and why was there blood on his mouth? The situation looked pretty dire. They were in a road, miles away from the nearest village and D'Artagnan was losing clour fast. Aramis noted with distress that he was running a fever too. Damn. He should have noticed something before. This was only going to make things more complicated.

"Why didn't you tell us you were sick?"

D'Artagnan tried to speak but his mouth tasted like blood and he didn't even have strength to get the words out.

"So-sorry. I just wanted to... I just..."

But his eyelids were too heavy and darkness started to take him.

"No, no, no, stay awake!"

The world disappeared.

"Stay with us!"

A/N: First venture into the fandom, hope it wasn't too bad. I just love D'Artagnan so much, I had to whump him. Hope you enjoyed!

Reviews give me life and encouragement to continue! ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Aramis shook the boy, gently at first, more forcefully then, trying to wake him up, but nothing happened. D'Artagnan was the palest they'd even seen him, his bloody hands hanging limply at the sides. The wound had been bound, but the shirt that they'd covered it with was blood red. It was a truly heartbreaking sight.

"We need to get him out of here, right now."

Porthos took the boy in his arms and they went to the carriage, to ask for directions. They knew the way to the nearest village but feared it would be too far, it would take too long. That D'Artagnan wouldn't last the ride there – there had to be something closer. There had to. The people from the carriage were very kind and told them about a farm, not far from where they were, even let them borrow the carriage to and the driver to get there faster and more comfortably.

"That poor boy got that grievous wound defending us." The woman said. "This is the least we can do. Just send it back when you get there, we'll be waiting here in the shade. But... you take those men with you."

She was talking about the two bandits they managed to stop, of course. Athos and Aramis tied them to the seat in the outer part of the back of the carriage. They didn't seem too angry, which was strange- they were eerily calm. Almost smiling. Without giving it much thought, the musketeers got in and gently placed their injured friend inside the carriage, lying down.

"He should have said something if he wasn't feeling good, he put everything at risk." Athos said, although he couldn't really be angry at the Gascon, hard as he tried. Not when he looked like that, as if he were half dead already.

"I should have noticed." Aramis countered. "I saw him waver before, I just thought he was tired."

"Placing blame is not going to help him right now. The most important thing for the moment is that he lives." Porthos sentenced from his place next to the driver, not enjoying the conversation. That would get them nowhere, it was better to focus and try to be productive.

They had a priority right now. They had to save their boy.

As they quickly rode towards the farm, they noticed that D'Artagnan's wound was still bleeding and so both Athos and Aramis set out the bind it more tightly and put pressure on it. If that trickle kept up, he would bleed out in mere hours. The force of it awoke the young man.

The first thing he felt was a sharp pain in his stomach that woke him up. And then he realised, slowly but surely, that the world didn't make sense – at all. It was only pain and blurred lines, and a strange pale ceiling that kept moving. And pain, pain everywhere and a sensation of incredible cold that he couldn't shake off, just leaking through his blood and covering everything and he was nauseous and confused and didn't understand where he was or what was happening... He heard a small noise, like someone coughing and never realised it was him doing it.

And then his stomach jumped and there was blood on his mouth and someone put him on his side so he wouldn't choke on it. He faintly registered seeing the blood fall, an intense red, to the floor. And he couldn't do anything. He was helpless, like a child, being moved and gently taken care of. He tried to move, maybe say something, ask what was happening, but all he managed to do was faintly raise one hand. His limbs felt like lead and his mouth tasted like blood. He was bouncing and felt like he was going to fall off wherever he was laying. And then, someone took his hand.

"It will be fine, D'Artagnan. We've got you."

He wanted to say something – wanted to understand, why he hurt so badly, why everything was upside down, where was his father? He didn't recognise this place and everything was spinning and he just wished it would stop.

"We've got you." The familiar sooothed him a bit, and he closed his eyes again.

He felt that, wherever he was and whatever was happening, he was safe. Protected.

Athos and Aramis felt simply scared, because it was obvious that their friend was not just badly wounded, he was getting worse, fast. Fading right before their eyes. Aramis looked at the bloody hand he was still holding, and his eyes were bright. He wanted to blame the powder from before – he couldn't let emotions get the best of him. Still, it was hard. D'Artagnan had looked in their direction with pleading unfocused eyes, and Aramis saw the brave boy they've met not so long ago, proud, daring, and it just broke his heart because he knew there was a chance that he wouldn't survive this.

"You keep fighting." He whispered. "We still need you."

After what seemed an eternity, they finally reached the farm that was desserted. Hoping the owners wouldn't mind too much, they got in and placed D'Artagnan in the main bed, careful not to jostle him too much.

"Porthos, could you bring those criminals back to Paris? Take the horses after you leave the carriage with the its owners, and please apologize for the blood stains." Athos said, trying to organise everything, while Aramis looked for supplies.

"I will. And I will make sure those two tell where their friends went to, oh, I will. You take care of our wounded soldier. I want to see him up by the time I get back."

"Of course."

Aramis did the best he could with D'Artagnan's injury (realised with dread that the stab wound hadn't stopped bleeding and dressed it again, amongst other things) and cleaned the boy's sweaty face with a rag and some clean water.

Now they could only wait and hope for the best.

* * *

Porthos had a bad feeling about it, all of it. From the attack to the carriage, to the strange powder, to the bandits running and the faces of those men... something was not right.

Somewhere in Paris, the two bandits smiled as they were given away to the competents authorities. Because they were a team, a unit, and of course, they would never talk. They knew that already people were coming for them. They knew that when they did, they could tell their partners were those damned musketeers were at. They knew that they would pay for killing Bertrand and imprisoning them.

Those musketeers would pay, for his fallen brother and all of those they'd killed before. They had a big storm coming and they wouldn't even know.

* * *

Athos was angry. He was angry at himself for not being able to protect D'Artagnan or stop those men, he was angry at the boy for not saying he was sick, he was angry at those criminals for stabbing this young courageous boy and just leaving him to die on the grass, angry at Treville for giving them that assignment... And yet, all that anger was drowned out by a great melancholy, that weighed down on him. A feeling of loss, of grief.

_Again. _

He sat on a wooden chair next to D'Artagnan's bed, hoping he could do something else to improve this, something else to ease their young friend's pain. Part of him just wanted to go out and get those bandits, each and every one of them and see them pay. But no, that would have to wait. Right now, that boy needed all the comfort he could get. He was muttering things in an uneasy sleep, something along the lines of _I'm sorry_, a panicky mention or two of his father and lots of incoherent mumbling and a final, almost inaudible plea of _please, forgive me._

Athos wiped away the tears that escaped the closed eyes with a heavy heart.

"You're forgiven, son. Stop suffering."

It was going to be a very long night.

A/N: So that was chapter two! Hope you enjoyed ;) Crying in their sleep is a vice of mine and since I set this in early season one I figured poor D'Art would still be shaken up about his father's death. Anyways, THANK YOU so much for all the feedback on chapter one, hope you're still enjoying the story!Reviews make my day ;)

Edit: Fixed some of the mistakes, hoping it's better. English is not first language so there will be mistakes, sorry :(

Please leave your thoughts at the beep! Beeeep!


	3. Chapter 3

Revenge._ Those musketeers have to pay._ This was the only thing he could think of.

It was supposed to be a simple attack, close to home. Now one of his men was dead and two had been apprehended.

Over the course of the years, many people had fallen in the hands of soldiers, guards and musketeers. They had been left to rot in jail, killed on the spot or hanged afterwards. Étienne had seen countless cell mates leave the cell and never come back. Had heard the shots that had taken their lives, had felt a bit more bitter and angry after each one of them. There were too many of them that perished, too many lives cut short by the king and his servants. It wasn't fair, that those men who killed and imprisoned them and got away with it. As if it was acceptable, as if their lives were worth nothing. They had to do something to stop this, something to get the upper hand.

So what if they could harness that power of team work and support for their own ends? Because it would be great if they got to be their own musketeers. The musketeers of crime, if you will. So when Étienne was granted a pardon by Queen Anne, he started forming his brotherhood. Everyone was accepted there, thieves, prostitutes, all sorts of criminals. Etienne knew the name of each one of those men and women and taught them to defend themselves, and their team mates.

_You protect yourself, then your unit, and if you are taken then you knew the others will come for you. _It made everyone work better, be less afraid of being caught. He also had a couple of alchemists who concocted deffensive weapons with poisonous plants, from that itching powder that was most effective on eyes, to a colourless poison that could kill you in mere minutes. Scientists - they were with them mostly for the money, but were incredibly uselful. Étienne hadn't lost a man since he started, and didn't want to start now.

So when Laurent came back at told him that some Musketeers had killed Bertrand and taken Paul and Nicholas, he decided that they needed to pay. That an example should be set with those Musketeers. He took a small group of his best men and women and set out for Paris, where he quickly and efficiently rescued his men and got some information on the particular musketeers that had done this, by _interrogating_ some local folks at a bar. And as his men had informed him, they were at the old Charmette farm – on their territory. They had gotten rid of the original Charmettes when they started operating in that area, reclaimed that farm as their own and they could get rid of these men too. They would.

"What will you do, Étienne?"

"They killed one of us, and so many others before. I want them to suffer. I want everyone to know that you can not hurt us and walk. We will take two of them, the boy that seems so important, and whoever is closest. Then we lure the others – so they can watch him writhe in pain at our hands and die, while they can do nothing."

Étienne smiled at his main torturer, Adrien, who smiled back. They've waiting long for an occasion to use his talents.

"Then we kill the other one that we have -who I hope it's the one that killed Bertrand- and let one of the other two be killed trying to save his dear musketeer friends. But the other one who caught you, that one will get to live, and remember us forever. I want him blinded, I want the last he sees to be his friends' bodies so it will haunt him the rest of his days. And I want him useless, forever remembering that he couldn't protect his own, and being a living example of why no one should ever get in our way."

His team smiled around him as he mentioned the plan, all ready to get some well-deserved revenge against the men that had caused them so much trouble.

"It begins tonight, friends. Our victory over the musketeers – our vengeance."

* * *

Athos had fallen asleep uncomfortably in a chair by D'Artagnan's bedside and had dreamed of dead people, of gravestones and tears not fallen, of a grief that took your insides and never let go, of faces full of pain and blood falling slowly to the floor. Of loss and grief and failure and impending doom. When he awoke, he barely remembered where he was. This whole business with D'Artagnan had made him remember things he would sooner have forgotten. Still, there was still some time before dawn, so he tried to sleep a bit more.

When he opened his eyes again, Aramis was tending to the wounded boy.

"How is he?" Athos asked.

"The wound is not giving any more problems, but his fever is still too high. We don't even know what caused it or how long he'd been ill before the mission..."

"You did a good job, Aramis."

"Maybe, but I fear it won't be good enough. He's really weak and he's been unconscious or disoriented for almost a day. I fear that if that fever does not break soon his body won't handle it."

"He's strong. He will survive." Athos sentenced, hoping to be telling the truth. Losing D'Artagnan would be painful for all of them, even if they hadn't known him for so long. He'd just become a part of the team, he'd come naturally. He was important, and probably didn't even realise how much. Hell, not even Athos himself had realised how fond he'd grown of the boy.

"You look terrible. Why don't you go outside and get some air while you wait for Porthos to return? I'll stay here with him."

"I think that is not a bad idea." Athos said, and then remembered. "How are your eyes? That powder they had didn't have any lasting effects, did it?"

"No, I think it was just something to immobolize the enemy for a bit, irritating the eyes but nothing more. Not a bad trick, to be honest, I was practically helpless there for a couple of minutes. Let's just hope we don't run into that again."

"Yes, let's hope so."

It was two hours later when D'Artagnan opened his eyes again, and it wasn't as scary as last time. Someone was there with him and he was laying in something soft. A bed most probably. Dark eyes were watching him, dark eyes he vaguely recognised.

"Aramis?"

The musketeer smiled. This was good. Not only D'Artagnan was awake but he had recognised him. Maybe their fears had been excessive, maybe the wound had looked worse than it actually was, maybe the only thing their boy had needed was a full day of rest to recover from whatever had made him ill. Maybe they could be hopeful.

"Good to have you back. How are you feeling?"

"Tired." He said, not wanting to admit anything else. Not wanting to admit how drained and unwell he felt. Not wanting to admit that even blinking took an incredible amount of effort. Not wanting to admit weakness, still.

"Get some rest, then. I'll be here."

And so he did.D'Artagnan closed his eyes and forgot time. He didn't know how much time had passed when he opened them again- but something was not right. Something had woken him. Instinct. At first he couldn't point out what was it, but then he noticed it. Silent shadows approaching him and Aramis – people who weren't supposed to be there. Before he was able to warn the musketeer, D'Artagnan found himself taken by the darkness again, silenced by those masked shadows. He couldn't even scream. They were taken away, just as silently, any sound they made muffled.

Unaware of what was happening, at the entrance of the farm, Porthos was glad to be back where the others were. Not seeing the unsettling faces of those bandits anymore. Athos was in the entrance, looking troubled.

"How is D'Artagnan?"

"Still fighting. Is there something wrong, Porthos? You seem... preoccupied."

"I just... Those men, the bandits, they were practically smiling as I took them to jail. As if they were happy about it, as if it was the first part of some sordid plan. Something tells me it won't be the last time we see them."

"Let's hope you're wrong."

They discussed what had happened for a bit longer and how they should probably investigate that group of bandits better. They were too well prepared, and there was too many of them. After discussing the matter, they discussed to join the others but when they got to the room where Aramis and D'Artagnan were supposed to be, they found only a bit of blood and a note written with it.

_The brotherhood of the Black Mask has taken your companions. If you wish to see them alive again, come unarmed to the hidden basement under the barn. If you inform anyone one of them will die. _

_Your payment begins now._

_a/n: I wasn't so happy with the previous chapter and I'm not too happy now either, but at least the story is advancing towards the juicy part. Or something. At least I can use it to show my love for French names. Bad times ahead for our boys! Sorry about the all mistakes, English is not first language and there are things (missing words, spellings, prepositions...) that I just don't see because I know what I meant to say (if that makes any sense), anyways... Hope you're enjoying the story so far a big THANK YOU to those who have already! Specially to The Phantom Dragon (great to see Marvel people here too), Zoe Breaky, MargaretThornton, Issai and Violet eternity who reviewed in both eps. You guys are the best ;) Here's hoping this bit cleared up some things.  
_

_Sorry for the super long note! You know you want to review! ^^_


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